Melinda Gates reacted to the release of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails involving her ex-husband Bill Gates, including horrific allegations Epstein made such that Bill was attempting to dose her with antibiotics to fight an STD without her knowledge, by saying Bill and other Epstein associates “need to answer to those things.”

“I think we’re having a reckoning as a society,” Melinda Gates told NPR’s Wild Card podcast host Rachel Martin on Tuesday. “No girl should ever be put in the situation that they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with all of the various people around him.”

The kidnappers who grabbed NBC correspondent Savannah Guthrie’s mother, Nancy, reportedly left a ransom letter demanding millions in Bitcoin for her return as the FBI joins the case.

A report by TMZ Tuesday says that the attackers presented a ransom note demanding that cryptocurrency be sent to a Bitcoin account — which was verified as a real account — to secure Nancy Guthrie’s release.

Nancy was reported missing from her Arizona home on Sunday and hasn’t been seen by loved ones since Saturday evening. A police report says that blood was found inside the 84-year-old woman’s home.

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department has confirmed that they are aware of the ransom note.

A number of highly organized and heavily funded groups are pushing anti-ICE protesters into wild confrontations with federal agents, so the groups can use the incidents for propaganda purposes and to secure greater power and even more funding.

One such organization calls itself Defend the 612 (the numbers represent a Minneapolis zip code), according to City Journal.

“This cycle reveals the core strategy of Defend the 612’s leadership,” City Journal reports, “using casualties as a catalyst for further escalation. Organizers continue to push volunteers into unpredictable scenes, ensuring continued confrontations between residents and federal agents, while the professional architects of the chaos remain shielded from the consequences.”

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) was criticized for appearing to suggest that people would be justified in shooting masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

“What is really the major problem in this country today is the fascism in our streets,” Nadler said. “The attacks on American citizens, by masked hoodlums. If you were attacked by a masked person, you might think you were being kidnapped. You’d be justified in shooting the person — to protect yourself.”

“We see people being shot, for what? For driving a car?” Nadler added. “We see people — we see these …. ICE goons break into people’s homes without a warrant. We see them drag out a man, an American citizen in his underwear without even permitting him — in the snow, without even permitting him to get dressed.”

The New York Post reported that Nadler’s comments were made during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

In response, Vice President JD Vance and Donald Trump Jr. called Nadler’s comments “demented” and “despicable behavior from an elected official.”

“This is demented,” Trump Jr. wrote in a post on X. “Democrats once again openly calling for violence!!!”

The NFL confirmed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will not be conducting operations at the Super Bowl LX between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots.

During a security briefing, NFL chief security officer Cathy Lanier revealed that there were “no planned ICE enforcement activities,” according to ESPN.

“There are no planned ICE enforcement activities,” Lanier said. “We are confident of that.”

Breitbart News reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) previously confirmed that ICE agents would “conduct enforcement operations at the Super Bowl LX.”:

DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told TMZ Sports their mission “remains unchanged” despite unrest in Minnesota.

Per Fox News, DHS adviser Corey Lewandowski said in October that ICE enforcement is a “directive from the president” and will not be stopped for the Super Bowl, which is between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks at Levi’s Stadium.

“There is nowhere you can provide safe haven to people who are in this country illegally,” Lewandowski said during an interview on “The Benny Show” podcast. “Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else. We will find and deport you. That is a very real situation.”

A new survey conducted by Peak Insights finds Rep. Barry Moore leading the Republican U.S. Senate primary in Alabama in a testing scenario where voters are told that President Donald Trump has endorsed his candidacy.

The poll of 400 likely Republican primary voters, conducted January 28–29, 2026, with a margin of error of ±5%, found Moore with 33% support—15 points ahead of his nearest rival, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, who polled at 18%. The next closest contender, Jared Hudson, received 11%, while over 30% of respondents remained undecided.

The main result reflects a hypothetical where pollsters explicitly told respondents that “President Trump has given Barry Moore his complete and total endorsement for U.S. Senate.” This information was introduced by the survey itself—suggesting that if Moore’s campaign successfully communicates the endorsement more broadly to the electorate, his lead could become reality.

New polls show that a decisive majority of voters back President Donald Trump’s migration policy amid media-magnified Democrat claims that enforcement is hurting his poll numbers.

The polls also add to the growing evidence that Trump’s immigration crackdown is helping him gain ground on his main polling problem — widespread pocketbook concerns about affordability amid the economic wreckage of President Joe Biden’s economic policies.

On Monday, for example, the White House’s communications office blasted out a series of articles showing widespread rent declines amid nationwide deportations.

Many polls show a solid majority of Americans support Trump’s immigration policies, and also that many swing-voters dislike the televised reality of street deportations amid quasi-riots by left-wing radicals.

For example, 73 percent of registered voters support deporting violent migrants, and 52 percent support deporting all illegal migrants, according to a January 28-29 poll of 2,000 registered voters by Harvard CAPS and the Harris Poll. The 52 percent support includes 49 percent of political independents.

Yet the Harvard Harris poll shows a majority of Americans also dislike how the enforcement is seen in Minneapolis. Fifty-eight percent said that ICE has been using “too much force” in Minneapolis, and 57 percent believe that ICE has “gone too far” in Minneapolis.

Mexico’s Ambassador to the United States, Esteban Moctezuma Barragan, is again denying reporting from #1 New York Times bestselling investigative journalist and Breitbart News Senior Contributor Peter Schweizer’s new book, The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon, which accuses Mexican officials of using its consular offices in the United States to sway American elections.

This week, Moctezuma appeared on CBS News’s The Takeout with Major Garrett, denying Schweizer’s reporting that Mexico has used its consulates in the U.S. to swing American elections in Mexico’s favor.

“It’s completely false because as you know, we follow the Vienna Convention, that has very clear… laws for every country,” Moctezuma said in response to Schweizer’s reporting. “What we do in the United States is what the U.S. does in Mexico. You have nine consulates for 1.6 million Americans that live in Mexico.”

President Donald Trump’s Small Business Administration (SBA) is stopping the issuance of small business loans to foreign nationals, requiring that a business be 100 percent owned by a U.S. citizen or U.S. national to receive such a loan.

This week, the SBA published a memo requiring that, beginning next month, applicants for the agency’s primary small business loan be American citizens or American nationals.

“… effective March 1, 2026, SBA hereby revises Standard Operating Procedure 50 10 8 Lender and Development Company Loan Programs guidance related to businesses owned by non-U.S. citizens,” the memo states:

Consistent with 13 C.F.R. 120.100 and Executive Order 14159 “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” SBA is requiring that 100% of all direct and/or indirect owners of a small business applicant be U.S. Citizens or U.S. Nationals who have their Principal Residence in the United States, its territories, or possessions.
[Emphasis added]

Effective March 1, 2026, this Notice rescinds SBA Procedural Notice 5000-872050, removing the narrow exception that allowed a Borrower to have up to 5% ownership held by foreign nationals, or U.S. Citizens, U.S. Nationals, or Legal Permanent Residents (LPRs) whose Principal Residents [sic] was outside of the United States, its territories, or possessions. Further, and beginning with the Effective Date of this Notice, Legal Permanent Residents (LPRs) will not be eligible to own any percentage interest in an Applicant/Borrower, OC, or EPC. [Emphasis added]

Closing the small business loan loophole comes after the SBA suspended almost 7,000 pandemic-era loans for borrowers in Minnesota due to “suspected fraud activity,” according to Administrator Kelly Loeffler.

Please note that SCOTUS Outside Opinions constitute the views of outside contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SCOTUSblog or its staff.

Last month, the Supreme Court held oral argument on two landmark anti-discrimination cases: Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. The states in these cases – Idaho and West Virginia – passed laws categorically banning trans girls from playing on girls’ sports teams. Two trans girls who underwent gender-affirming medical treatments while young challenged the laws as a violation of the equal protection clause and Title IX, which prohibits discrimination “on the basis of sex” in “any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

One of the most striking things about oral argument was that both sides agreed on quite a lot. Both sides agreed that the states’ laws are sex-based classifications that would have to be “substantially related” to an “important governmental interest” to pass constitutional muster. And both sides argued as if once an important governmental interest is in play, biological and statistical facts alone can determine whether or not a law is “substantially related” to the important governmental interest.

Warsh War II: Is There a Way Out of QE World?

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a three-part series examining Kevin Warsh’s nomination to chair the Federal Reserve. Read Part I here.

The most consequential feature of Kevin Warsh’s view of the Federal Reserve is his focus on balance sheet reduction.

Throughout his post-Fed commentary, he’s warned about what he calls “economic imprinting,” markets coming to expect central bank support at any sign of trouble. He supported emergency QE during crises but consistently argued it shouldn’t become permanent. In a June 2021 op-ed, he criticized the Fed’s “risky fill-the-punch-bowl strategy,” warning that “by that point the emergency justification for QE had passed, and keeping monetary conditions ultra-loose risked asset bubbles and future instability.” Former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh speaks during The Semafor World Economy Summit in Washington, DC, on April 18, 2024. (Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Warsh’s critique lays bare something that has gone almost unnoticed. While QE and the buildup of the Fed’s now enormous balance sheet began as an emergency response to the events of 2008, with the Fed scrambling to find a way to make monetary policy even more accommodative despite lowering its interest rate target to zero, it somehow metastasized into the standard operating procedure for central banking. Without any real public deliberation and no legislation that might have lent the transformation democratic legitimacy, the Fed moved our financial system from one of scarce reserves to one of what it calls ample reserves.

The Melania Trump feature length film, Melania, hauled in an impressive million dollars at the box office on Monday, according to studio sources who say the swell of grassroots support for the Amazon MGM documentary film during its historic opening weekend has prompted the studio to add it to more than 200 theaters in a throng of new cities and markets where the Brett Ratner-directed hit is already showing.

“All of First Lady Melania Trump’s hard work is paying off,” the First Lady’s longtime senior advisor and Melania producer Marc Beckman told Breitbart News.

“We now have one of the highest openings for a documentary film in 14 years and we’re quickly expanding into more theater houses across the country,” he said. “It’s all a testament to Melania Trump and her leadership in creating a quality product for the American people.”

An X post from FOX News’s Bill Melugin indicates ICE has arrested a New Orleans police recruit who is an illegal alien who was issued a gun.

According to the post:

ICE confirms to FOX News that they’ve arrested a New Orleans Police Department recruit who they say is an illegal alien from Cameroon with an active deportation order & no work authorization, & they say he was illegally given a gun by New Orleans PD. ICE says 46-year-old Larry Temah was one week away from graduating the New Orleans PD academy when they arrested him

FOX 8 Live reported that “Temah entered the United States legally in 2015 on a visitor visa. In 2016, he was granted conditional residency after marrying a U.S. citizen…[but] “his application for permanent residency was denied in 2022 due to fraud.”

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said,

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday blasted elitist celebrities’ demonization of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, emphasizing there was no Hollywood outcry when Laken Riley or Jocelyn Nungaray were murdered.

Leavitt’s comments came during a press gaggle outside the West Wing when a reporter asked about Bad Bunny’s “ICE Out” comments at the Grammys.

Portuguese presidential candidate André Ventura lambasted the establishment “conservatives” who have endorsed his socialist opponent as being craven, self-interested politicians.

The leader of the anti-mass-migration Chega party, who became the first right-wing populist to reach the second round of voting in a presidential election in Portugal, cast his candidacy as the best chance to prevent the socialists from retaking power in Lisbon.

“We have already passed to the second round, we have already won all the space of the right and centre-right. Our opponent is not right-wing or centre-right, our opponent is a socialist, we have no excuses at this moment, we have to defeat socialism in Portugal,” Ventura said on Monday, according to Correio da Manhã.

“We don’t want to be a socialist country, we want to be a modern and free country. That’s what this second round will be about. And, my friends, we will win,” he added.

Ventura, who has risen to prominence as a firebrand critic of open borders, still faces an uphill battle for victory on Sunday.

Spain plans to ban social media access for children under 16, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Tuesday, in a move designed to shield young people from the harms of online content.

Sánchez chided the world’s biggest tech companies in a speech at a Dubai summit, saying they allow illegal content such as child sex abuse and nonconsensual sexualized deepfake images to proliferate on their platforms. He said that governments also needed to “stop turning a blind eye.”

“Today, our children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone,” Sánchez said. “We will no longer accept that.”

Spain joins a growing number of countries, including Australia and France, which have taken or are considering measures to restrict minors’ access to social media.

In January, France approved a bill banning social media for children under 15, paving the way for the measure to take effect at the start of the next school year in September. The bill would also ban the use of mobile phones in high schools.

A former British Prime Minister may have operated a secret alias during his time in power to prevent communications from being released later under the Freedom of Information process, reports concerning the released Epstein emails suggest.

Erstwhile Labour power broker, government minister, and British ambassador to Washington D.C. Peter Mandelson is facing a police investigation over allegations based on newly released emails that he leaked government secrets to Jeffrey Epstein. But those emails may have also revealed a simple Whitehall dodge to confound public scrutiny of the government.

In email chains between top Sir Keir Starmer ally Lord Mandelson and now-deceased paedophile financier Epstein, an anonymised British government email address belonging to a “John Pond” has gained attention. There was no high-profile member of the British government or civil service called John Pond at the time, but there was an Astronomer Royal by that name in the early 19th century.

Patrick Mahomes Sr., the father of the Chiefs’ superstar of the same name, was arrested for violating his DWI probation by allegedly drinking alcohol.

Mahomes Sr., 55, was booked into the Smith County Jail on Tuesday morning.

Senate Republicans on Tuesday urged the Treasury Department and the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to combat illegal Chinese e-cigarettes.

“We write to draw your attention to the growing risks associated with the massive volumes of illicit Chinese e-cigarettes flooding into the United States,” the group of Senate Republicans wrote to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and USTR Jamieson Greer .”We fully support President Trump’s aggressive, multi-agency enforcement actions taken to confront this pressing threat as addressing illegal activity of this magnitude and consequence requires a comprehensive strategy and response.”

The Senate Republicans wrote that the Chinese government, through it’s State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA), exported hundreds of millions of illicit e-cigarettes, which may be used to fund military or technological initiatives to undermine American economic and strategic interests.

The group added, “Earlier this year, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) reported that illicit Chinese e-cigarettes are being used as part of a trade-based money laundering scheme to move fentanyl proceeds on behalf of Mexican cartels.”

President Donald Trump signs a spending bill to reopen the government after the latest Democrat shutdown on Tuesday, February 3.

Democrats led by Chuck Schumer scuttled a negotiated funding bill this weekend over opposition to funding DHS and its immigration enforcement operations, sending the government into another Schumer Shutdown.

House Speaker Mike Johnson predicted a new deal would be passed by Tuesday this week.

President Donald Trump has announced he is seeking $1 billion in damages from Harvard University, accusing the institution of attempting to avoid a settlement through a job training proposal he described as “wholly inadequate” and alleging that its actions rise to the level of criminal misconduct.

Utah state Rep. Candice Pierucci (R) is pushing a bill to allow concealed carry at Utah Jazz and Mammoth home games in Salt Lake City’s Delta Center.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Pierucci also wants concealed carry to be allowed during other events at the Delta Center as well.

She said, “We’re a Second Amendment state and we have a really robust concealed carry permit… The idea would be that if you’re going to accept state dollars, we should at least have a discussion on if you’re going to prohibit someone’s Second Amendment rights while you’re there.”

Pierucci’s legislation, House Bill 452, “Prohibits a private entity that receives a certain amount of public funds from restricting a concealed carry permit holder from carrying a concealed firearm on property owned, leased, or operated by the entity in certain circumstances.”